Question

I query my SQL database to populate my spinners, I have no problem populating the spinner with a string array of the resulting Book Titles (this is a library style app). While getting the Book Titles into the spinner for selection is no problem, what is the best way to tie these titles back to their SQL _id’s? I’ve been looking for a way to make spinners “multi-dimensional” but so far I don’t see how.

Any help in the right direction would be much appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

You definitely want the SimpleCursorAdapter. You must include the _id in the select query. Here is an example…

Spinner spinner = (Spinner) dialog.findViewById(R.id.mm_spinner);

// DatabaseInterface would be your data access class...
DatabaseInterface db = new DatabaseInterface(this);
db.open();

Cursor c = db.getNames(); // This would contain _id, name from a database for example.

SimpleCursorAdapter adapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(this, 
      android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item,
      c,
      new String[] {DatabaseInterface.KEY_ID, DatabaseInterface.KEY_NAME}, 
      new int[] {android.R.id.text1});

adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
spinner.setAdapter(adapter);

… This will bind the _id to the spinner id. So when you select an item in the list using the onitemclicklistener like what I posted below. You will have the correct _id’s associated with each of the names in the list…

spinner.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
     public void onItemClick(AdapterView parent, View view, int position, long id){
           // id = the _id from the cursor
     }
});